Ship on a platform

[Viktoria]

Just up Moseley Street, that is across St Peter’s Square which is near Central Station   where  The ArtGallery  and Portico Library are,were shipping line offices,  White  Star and
Furness Lines etc.
Manchester is a sea port due to The Ship Canal but if a passenger port I am not sure , I suppose the station was a point from which people departed to the ports of departure.
Liverpool for example .
And returned .

If passengers used the station in great numbers it is possible a ship from one of those lines would be on display.
Viktoria.

[Elwyn Soutter]

There were passenger ships from Manchester docks (Salford) at one time. They died out (in the 1960s I think) both because most passenger shipping was replaced by air travel but also because the remaining passenger liners were bigger and no longer fitted in the Manchester Ship canal.

The Kelvingrove museum in Glasgow used to have many models of ships like this. The plaques often explained that they had been built by shipyard apprentices. So if  a customer was planning to commission a new vessel, the yard would get the apprentices to knock up a model to show the client. In some cases, these models obviously ended up unwanted and somehow made their way to the museum. I don't think that explains why this particular model was in a Manchester railway station but may give some possible background to its creation.

[Henry7]

Model ships in glass cases on the platforms of the larger stations were fairly common in the 1940s and 1950s - or at least they were in Lancashire when I was a lad there, then.

There was one on a platform at Bolton Trinity Street station and, like that shown above at Blackburn in Roobarb's post, it was an Isle of Man ship.  Just something fascinating to gaze at while waiting for a train, and as a bit of advertisement for the I. o. M. ferry from Fleetwood or wherever.

I seem to remember the  Bolton ship's name was 'St.' somebody or other - a short name - but I may be wrong about that; it's all a long time ago.

Harry.

[Kiltpin]

Is it the same ship in a bottle that was on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square? 

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-ship-in-a-bottle-the-fourth-plinth-trafalgar-square-30324265.html
Regards

Chas

[wayne69]

Thank you for all the very helpful and informative replies.
               Wayne 69